Sleep Apnea must be diagnosed by a physician from an overnight sleep study. The sleep study can be completed at a facility with trained staff monitoring all facets of sleep or with a home monitor from the comfort of your own bed. Both options can be used by a boarded sleep physician to diagnose your condition. Home sleep studies are much less expensive but also can under diagnose the presence of sleep apnea. In some cases, it is recommended that if you have a negative reading with a home sleep test that you follow up with an in-lab sleep study to verify results.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has 3 classification categories for obstructive sleep apnea (mild, moderate, and severe). The difference between the categories is the number of suffocation events per hour of sleep. Mild is equal to 5-15 events per hour. Moderate is 16-30. Severe is over 30 suffocation events per hours of sleep. Obstructive sleep apnea is progressive in nature and will only get worse over time with no treatment.

It depends and there is no guarantee that snoring will be completely stopped. However, we will do everything possible to help you get into the best position. The best position is a combination of minimal snoring noise, restful sleep, and comfort. It often takes time to adjust to your appliance and find this position. We are able to run some simple tests to help us determine this position.

The first way is subjective analysis of how you feel. However, we don’t rely simply on how you feel to determine whether the appliance is working. We will also validate the treatment using a follow-up sleep study to ensure your suffocation events are eliminated. This means we may have to repeat this test until we get the results we want. We also may use technology such as the CBCT X-ray or Cone Beam to evaluate how well the appliance has opened the airway.

We can assure you that we will take every precaution to prevent possible harm. However, it is possible to have some changes to your occlusion (the way the teeth fit together) as well as your TMJ (jaw joint) with treatment.

Untreated Obstructive Sleep Apnea is a life threatening condition. Few diseases exist which have more significant consequences to health and longevity than this. Possible risks include but are not limited to: heart attack, stroke, uncontrollable type 2 diabetes, poor work (school) performance, daytime fatigue and sleepiness, automobile accidents, negative social interactions and many more.

CPAP (or continuous positive airway pressure) devices are the gold standard for treating Obstructive Sleep Apnea. The effectiveness of a CPAP should not be undervalued. However, there are many people that do not tolerate wearing a CPAP machine. The main goal for treatment should always be finding the least expensive, least invasive, and most effective treatment for OSA. There are times when neither CPAP or an oral appliance meet these criteria. In these cases, we will work with you physician and other specialists to determine what other option will get you the best possible outcome.

Grabill Family Dentisty is not a participating provider with most medical or dental insurance companies. As a courtesy, we are happy to help in filing paperwork, insurance forms, and any documentation to assist in the processing of your claims. Typically, TMJ and sleep treatments are filed under medical insurance. We feel it is important for you to fully understand the policies you have and their payment allowances. Since we are out-of-network providers, your insurance company may be unwilling to provide any information to us other than the basic plan benefits. Therefore, we may ask you to contact your insurance provider to obtain your plan’s specific benefit information.